Thicker Than Water - 15. Chapter 15

Diego pulled into the parking lot. He had already talked to at least six lawyers already and none had any openings. He was starting to feel frustrated. His business partner offered to help, but Diego had already been asking too much of the man already and couldn't keep doing it. He got out of his truck and walked up to the door and went in.

The lobby was nice enough, though small. It smelled like paper and cleaner, not too dissimilar to a government building. There was a small sitting area and the rest of the floor was behind a wall. A receptionist sat behind the only desk in the room.

“May I help you?” she asked as Diego approached.

“Yes, my name is Diego Padilla, and I was hoping to speak to someone today.”

“I'm sorry, Sir, but we don't take immigration cases.”

Diego wanted to snap at the little bleach-blonde bitch, but held his tongue. His boys were more important. “Then it's a good thing I'm an American citizen, then, isn't it? Anyway, I need to speak to an attorney familiar with Family Law. I have a custody situation I need advice on.”

Unbothered by Diego's bitter tone, the receptionist got on her computer and started typing. “Is this a paternity matter, and if so, have you already taken a DNA test or put your name on the birth certificate?”

Strike two on the racism card, Diego thought. “This isn't about paternity. I've adopted two kids, and their biological father has returned, and I think he's trying to take them from me.”

“I see,” she said, doing more typing. “And did you file a Dissolvement of Domestic Partnership with their father?”

Strike three and this bitch is being homophobic now! “Look Barbie,” Diego said, losing his cool, “I don't know what kind of racist, homophobic bullshit you've got going on, but I'm not here to be your white privilege piñata, okay? I came here to talk to a lawyer and not answer your obviously bigoted questions. I'm a sixth generation Mexican American, who has adopted two white boys, whose straight father dumped them on me nine years ago, and has finally decided to return after his also white junky of an ex-wife died last month. So, before you become a Karen about this and make some edited Truth Social post about how the mean, 'faggot wetback' scared you, how about you do your job and get me that lawyer?”

The receptionist looked pissed, which was fine with Diego. He had no sympathy for bigots. He sat down as the woman got on the phone and talked in quick, hushed tones. Diego was pleasantly surprised when an older man came out instead of security.

“You must be Mr. Portillo,” he said, extending a hand.

Diego stood, shook it and said, “It's Padilla; Diego Padilla.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Padilla. I'm Thomas Walker, an associate attorney here, and I understand that you're looking for a consultation regarding a custody dispute?”

“Not necessarily a dispute, but there very well could be, Mr. Walker.”

“Alright. Just so you know, I can offer a free consultation today, but it will cost $150 per hour on top of a $500 retainer if you want the firm to represent you.”

“I understand. Right now, I'd like a consultation and see what my options are.”

“Very well. Come with me.”

The lawyer escorted Diego passed the receptionist who gave him a nasty look. Diego only smiled as he walked by. They walked through a door, passed rows of cubicles to a small conference room near the back. A solid, oak table sat in the middle and walls were lined with shelves full of legal texts.

“Please have a seat, Mr. Padilla.” Mr. Walker indicated a seat at one end of the table. After Diego sat, Mr. Walker took a seat next to him. “So, how about we start from the beginning?”

Diego recounted everything he felt was relevant to the case starting with the night Calvin showed up the the boys. As he spoke, he thought it was odd that Mr. Walker wasn't taking notes. The man didn't ask any questions and just left Diego to talk. Diego finished with the events of the funeral service with no reaction from the lawyer.

“Um, that's it,” Diego said, uncertain of the whole thing.

“I think we can help, Mr. Padilla. It sounds like a cut and dry case. You have sole custody. The boys' biological father hasn't been in their lives for an extremely long time. There's nothing that suggests to me that Mr. Johnson has a claim.”

“That's good to hear,” Diego replied with a sigh of relief. “So, is it possible to get something like a restraining order against him or some means to keep him from contacting the boys or just showing up at the house?”

“Unfortunately not, I'm afraid. He would have to pose a significant threat to the boys to get a restraining order, plus the police aren't obligated to enforce them even if you got one. As far as a No Contact Order, you'd have the same burden of proof as a restraining order, which you don't seem to have. You can, however, call the police if he shows up to your house for trespassing.

“The best you can hope for is a stalking order, but that would require him to follow you and the boys, and you'd need evidence to support that like video and credible witnesses, which can be very hard to get, especially in public places.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“If I were you, I'd let the schools know what's going on and have them keep an eye out. If your kids are on social media, check their accounts. Make sure you know of their whereabouts at all times. You might even want to get some tracking apps for their devices.”

“I think I can do that,” Diego said. Caleb was safe, since the boy didn't have anything beyond an iPod, but Bryan might protest, seeing it as an invasion of his privacy.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” Mr. Walker said.

“No, Sir. You've been a great help.”

“Glad to hear it. You can settle the bill with the receptionist.”

“And how much will that be?”

“$150, which is our standard rate per hour, and we change for the full hour.”

“Okay. Thank you again, Mr. Walker.” Diego shook the man's hand, paid the receptionist and drove to the restaurant.

Diego kept replaying everything from the lawyer over and over in his head. The guy clearly wasn't interested in the case, but Diego felt that he at least got some good advice. Steve was awake when Diego got home. The boys had been in bed for a few hours already. He contemplated going into Bryan's room to get the phone, but decided to wait till the next day. He wasn't looking to have a fight after the long day he had.

“You know I could talk to my lawyer friend about your case if you want,” Steve said. “I've been meaning to call his husband anyway about a job offer.”

“It's fine,” Diego said, curling up to Steve. He was exhausted and wanted to stop thinking. “If I need a lawyer, we could talk about it then.”

Steve kissed Diego and held his boyfriend close. “Are you working this weekend?”

“Yeah. I have to cover time I've already missed because of Donna and Calvin. As much as I love my boys, I wish their parents had just left us alone.”

“I get it. Things must have been really easy without them.”

“For the most part. Bryan had issues after Calvin left, but they got better over time. Caleb was the lucky one, I think, never having actually known either of his birth parents. I never hid the fact they were adopted, but I'm the only guy Caleb has ever called, 'Dad.' It took him a while to call Donna 'Mom,' and even then it wasn't all that common.”

“So, you really think Calvin is here to start some shit?”

“Definitely. He never shows his face unless he wants something, which means he's fucked off his life so badly, he's desperate. Before the last time, I would only hear from him when he wanted something. I would try to make plans with him, and he'd ghost me unless there was something in it for him.”

“Why did you put up with it?”

“That's a good question. The first thing you need to know about Calvin is that he's a sociopath. He doesn't care about anyone but himself, ever. He's also very good at pretending he cares. He will tell you everything you want to hear, even if he doesn't believe it himself.

“The second thing you need to know is that, like every predator, Calvin senses weakness and exploits it for his own advantage. If you're feeling vulnerable, he will get out of you why you feel that way and exploit it by trying to be what you're looking for.

“The third thing you need to know is that Calvin never tells the whole truth. He always hides behind double talk, innuendo, contradictions and leaving out all kinds of information, and all that is separate from the flat out lies he just tells to get what he wants. If you catch on to what he's doing and call him out on it, he'll twist everything around, so he can play the victim and make you out to be the bad guy.”

“He sounds like a total piece of shit,” Steve said.

“He is, and worse,” Diego replied. “I met Calvin while dating Marco. Calvin and Marco were supposedly best friends. Once that relationship ended, Calvin dropped Marco with a quickness and started hanging out with me. At first, there wasn't really anything to it. One day, after going to a bar, Calvin starts tell me all this fucked up shit about his childhood and how he wished he had a brother like me to look out for him.”

“What kind of fucked up shit?”

“Calvin said that his mother would drag him and his siblings all over the country going from man to man. At one point, someone messed with him, sexually, but he'd never say who or how old he was. He claimed that he didn't like talking about it, despite the fact that he brought it up. He said that if we had been brothers, it might not have happened, given I'm about five years older than he is. I felt bad for him, of course, and that's when he had his in.

“A year later, he met Donna and had Bryan. Bryan wasn't even a year old when Calvin was caught cheating and left them. He moved in with me, claiming he just needed a place to stay for a little while till he could get his own place for him and Bryan. He didn't initially tell me why he left Donna, other than she was controlling and refused to work, leaving him as the sole breadwinner. When asked if he had cheated on Donna, he was emphatic that he had not and would not ever cheat on her or anyone else.

“After a month, he told me that he had cheated on Donna after leaving her, but before he came to stay with me. Then he told me that he had cheated on Donna once, then twice but with the same person, then it was twice with two different women. Then it was back to only cheating once, but this time it was with a transwoman.”

“How's that significant?”

“Until that point, Calvin claimed to be completely straight, to, like, a very toxic extreme, and only liked straight, cis women. Any mentioning of him, even jokingly, having gay sex sent him off the edge, so you can image my surprise when he confesses that, not only was he into transwomen but pre-op transwomen. He told me that he did several things with this woman, including sucking her dick and bottoming for her. After first, he claimed he didn't like any of it, but was just too horny to turn her away, but with each retelling, he became more and more willing, and even wanted to do it again.

“I, obviously, supported his choice to experiment with his sexuality, though I didn't think it was appropriate to have cheated on Donna, let alone leave her and Bryan on their own. What struck me weird was a few months after that, I brought up his encounter with the transwoman, and he denied everything about it, saying I was making it up. I got pretty pissed about it, but he insisted it was all in my head or some sick fantasy I was having about him.

“One night, Calvin came home stumbling drunk. He's a light weight, so it never took much to knock him on his ass, though that's still up for debate, to be honest. Anyway, I was asleep on the couch when I felt him grab my face. My eyes opened as he started kissing me, like full on kissing. I didn't know what to do, but I knew I didn't want that, so I pushed him away. He sat in my chair and passed out, or pretended to, anyway.

“I shook him and even lightly slapped his face, but he didn't budge, so I went to bed. The next day I asked him what that was all about, and he said he didn't remember any of it. I waited for him to tell me that I fantasized it, but he didn't. Instead, he told me that sometimes he does stuff like that when drunk, and used to do it to Donna all the time. He did apologize, though. Unfortunately, it wasn't the last time or the worst he did.”

Steve kissed Diego and the head and hugged him. “You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. I think I have an idea of Calvin now.”

“I get it,” Diego said, not wanting to make Steve uncomfortable, but he needed to explain a few more things, which Steve said he was okay with. “Anyway, Calvin often came home drunk and would make passes at me, try to kiss me and try to touch me inappropriately. This went on for a few months, before he decided to go back to Donna, who had moved here to Washington with Bryan. They stayed together for a few years, until Caleb was born. After Caleb, Donna lost interest in having sex, since she was too busy taking care of the kids. She and Calvin were living with Calvin's mother, since they had nowhere else to go. They both refused to work, despite the fact they could've.

“So, Calvin shows up at my house one night, claiming he left Donna again and this time it was for good. Of course, he needed a place to stay until he could get a divorce and take the kids. Not wanting a repeat of last time, I told him flat out that the whole getting drunk and touching me thing wasn't going to happen again. He made excuses for his actions, claiming that he hadn't gotten laid in forever and alcohol makes him horny. I told him that it wasn't going to happen again, period. I wasn't interested in him that way, and even if he was into me, I wasn't into him.

“He lived with me for close to a year. He couldn't keep a job for nothing. He had several girlfriends, who dumped him after he admitted to cheating on them all. He did file for divorce, got joint custody, but let Donna keep the kids, because he, 'liked the freedom of not having the kids all the time.'”

“What a pig,” Steve said.

“It gets worse. So, one night, I'm asleep in my bed, and I wake up to feeling something pressing down on it. I can only see a shadow over me, and I say, 'What the fuck are you doing?'

“Calvin said, 'I thought I left something in here. Just go back to bed.'

“Even though I was still half asleep, I knew something wasn't right. I demanded to know what he was doing, but he only repeated the same bullshit line. I eventually told him to get out of my room. When I confronted him the next day, he said that he must have been sleep walking. He only remembered me yelling at him and him not knowing why he was in my room.”

“That's total fucking bullshit.”

“I already know. The next day, he left me a note saying he was moving to Florida for a job, and that he told Donna, 'Fuck you and fuck the kids. I don't want to have anything to do with any of you, and when the kids turn 18, I'll contact them.' And I didn't hear from him again until he showed up on my doorstep with the boys.”

“You gotta be fucking kidding me,” Steve said, floored by the tale. “He had the nerve come back to you after all that?!”

“Yep. I talked to Calvin's mom, Joyce, just to find out what was going on, and she told me that everything Calvin had said about his childhood was pretty much a lie, including him being molested. She also told me that Calvin was telling her how I was controlling and kept making passes at him, trying to treat him like we were boyfriends. Joyce didn't believe a word of it. She said that Calvin was a habitual liar since he was a little kid and always played the victim whenever possible.

“Then, Donna started doing drugs after Calvin left her, because she couldn't cope with being a single mother. Joyce died from an aneurysm not long after that. Donna was homeless and moved from man to man, and eventually overdosed. Bryan was found wandering the streets naked, while Caleb hadn't been changed in days.

“Calvin was forced to come back to Washington or face child abandonment charges. He spent a year working on getting the boys out of foster care and fighting for custody, and once he was cleared by the State, he moved in with me.”

“Babe,” Steve said, “you should be sainted or something. I don't think I would've put up with any of that for as long as you did.”

“I don't know how I managed it, either, but if I hadn't, I wouldn't have my kids, and they mean more to me than anything.”

“Even me?” Steve said playfully.

“Yes, even you, but you're a very close second,” Diego said, kissing his boyfriend.